This invention is directed to a process for cutting tobacco and more particularly to a process for cutting sheets of reconstituted tobacco with control-strand length knives.
In the manufacturing of smoking articles, and particularly cigarettes, tobacco leaves are generally aged at specific temperatures and humidity conditions for a preselected period of time. The tobacco leaves are then separated into lamina, stems and veins. The stems and veins are not suitable without further processing for use in a tobacco process. Thus, the stems, veins, dust, fines and other tobacco materials, which are not acceptable in a smoking article in their natural state, are then reprocessed into a tobacco product referred to as xe2x80x9creconstituted tobaccoxe2x80x9d. In the manufacturing of reconstituted tobacco, a number of the undesirable chemical components that are normally in the tobacco may also be removed. The resulting reconstituted tobacco in sheet form is then acceptable for use in making a smoking article. Normally, these sheets of reconstituted tobacco are stored with tobacco lamina prior to any processing and then the reconstituted tobacco sheets are processed along with the tobacco lamina.
In the cutting of tobacco lamina, one particular reference of interest is Brackmann et al, U.S. Pat. No. 4.369.797 issued Jan. 25, 1983 which teaches a feed mechanism for a tobacco cutting machine for tobacco lamina wherein the lamina is fed in horizontal layers and cut with a rotary drum cutter.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved process for cutting sheets of reconstituted tobacco allowing it to be blended with cut tobacco.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method for cutting reconstituted tobacco which allows the capacity of a primary tobacco processing facility that processes reconstituted tobacco with lamina tobacco to be increased without modifying or replacing processing equipment.
It is even a further object of the present invention to provide a process which reduces attrition of reconstituted tobacco.
In carrying out the process of the present invention, a multiple-layer stack of sheets of reconstituted tobacco in a semi-continuous or continuous web is fed directly to a tobacco cutting device wherein the tobacco cutting device is a rotary drum cutter having controlled-strand length knives disposed along the outer periphery thereof for cutting the sheets of tobacco into well defined strands.
More particularly, the present invention provides a process for cutting reconstituted tobacco using sheets having a width approximately equal to the width of the mouth opening of a tobacco cutter to produce rolls of sheets by rolling up single sheets, then simultaneously unrolling a plurality of said rolls of sheets such that they are laid on top of one another; or alternatively, using sheets having a width approximately equal to the width of the mouth opening of a tobacco cutter then placing a plurality of said sheets on top of each other in an unrolled condition. The sheets of the reconstituted tobacco are then fed into a compression band of a tobacco cutter and a preselected amount of cut reconstituted tobacco is then blended with a preselected amount of cut tobacco for further processing.